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ASIAN DESERT WARBLER ON HOLY ISLAND

Asian Desert Warbler, The Snook, Holy Island 16 June 2020 (Mike Watson) CLICK ON IMAGES FOR LIGHTBOX

‘NORTHUMBERLAND OWES US’, we thought, referring to the pair of Ivory Gulls, which Rocket and I had missed on another of our miserable dips, now seven(!) years ago. However, we were pretty sure that the Asian Desert Warbler found by my old friend Mike Carr yesterday evening on Holy Island would stay a few more hours until we got there. Lucky for us it did but it was a strange journey, having to drive there in convoy in separate cars, owing to the Covid-19 social distancing rules. We chatted over the phone on handsfree a few times along the way, passing the Angel of the North, ‘Wow, what’s that?’ said Alexander and soon afterwards we passed signs to my old home village, Whickham before we raced up the A1 to Holy Island (or Lindisfarne). This was Alexander’s first visit to Holy Island and the ebbing tide still covered the causeway as we joined a small queue of cars waiting to cross at Beal, which was very exciting for him! A couple of whimbrels flew overhead calling and a Little Egret was out on the saltmarsh. I mentioned how Mike Carr and I had to push Andy Mould’s old mk I Ford Capri off the causeway on a rising tide in 1984, with water up to our knees and a fountain of seawater spraying up out of his gearbox. The car died the following week on an aborted trip to the Peak District.

The desert warbler was less exciting for Alexander though, as it remained inside the cover of some small isolated pines on the Snook for long periods, in poor light and usually mostly obscured. It did give up in the end and he could at least see its beady yellow iris through my binos. Even though it was my third in the UK after the Plymouth and Blakeney Point birds in the 1990s, and I have seen lots in the Middle East, I couldn’t say no to another in one of my favourite places. The visit brought back memories of my first BB rarity, which was here on 3 October 1981, a Scarlet Rosefinch found by Colin Bradshaw in the garden of Snook House and then there was the male subalpine warbler I found here with Keith Regan in May 1989 (I must get around to checking which subspecies that was). I had been thinking lately about going a little further afield than Lancashire for the first time since lockdown started, now that the rules have been relaxed a bit. So I was pleased to see only a small crowd, of around 40 people at any one time and it was nice to catch up with another old birding friend Ian Fisher. The rain held off and it turned into a grand day out among a carpet of marsh orchids!

Asian Desert Warbler, The Snook, Holy Island 16 June 2020 (Mike Watson)

‘Are we going to drive across?’


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MORE SANDERLING ACTION

Sanderling on Alston No.#1, 24 May 2020 (Mike Watson).

‘EVERY ARCTIC-BREEDING SHOREBIRD THAT LANDS AT ALSTON IS A PRIVILEGE’ is what Gav said about the first of this year’s Sanderlings and in the continuing strong westerly winds our walks elsehwere on our local patch had not been productive, so a trip to No.1 was the obvious choice this morning. It was feeding along the sheltered west bank of the ‘velodrome’ that is Alston No. 1 at the moment. Alexander is getting there in stalking birds and was able to get very close to it, being much smaller than me! He also managed to move it along to me, down to within minimum focus at times, it was easily the tamest of the eight Sanderling I have seen here so far this month. Fab-u-lous!

We still have a lot to learn about where the Sanderlings occurring in the UK breed in the Arctic. It could be Siberia (there is a recovery from there ringed on the Norfolk side of the Wash) but Tees-side-ringed Sanderlings have staged in Iceland, maybe bound for East Greenland or even the Canadian Arctic? It is amazing to think where the little bird today is bound for. Bird migration is awesome! Thanks to Gavin Thomas for finding today’s Sanderling.

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PENDLE HILL DOTTEREL

My first dotterel on Pendle Hill for four years, how times have changed! CLICK ON IMAGES FOR LIGHTBOX

DOTTEREL IS BECOMING A RARE SIGHT ON PENDLE HILL. As their numbers become fewer, they are ever more difficult to find as they stopover in East Lancashire on their way north each spring. Ironic that this year has seen the least disturbance on Pendle in recent memory, with hardly anyone making the hike up there, following the dubious closure of the Pendleside footpath. It would still have been a great place to keep your distance from other folks and much less risky than lots of places that were kept open. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this subject and came to the conclusion that the trip to the supermarket is infinitely more dangerous! Nevertheless, the finder rightly didn’t want the news broadcast despite the easing of lockdown allowing local folks to visit, in the knowledge that it would attract twitchers from much further afield. We were already aware of a birder making three c.100 miles round trips to Pendle the previous week in the hope of a dottie. We also thought that if this showy bird by the path to the trig point wasn’t battered by loads of toggers, as usually happens, it might attract some more during its stay but this proved not to be the case even with the lack of the usual endless stream of hikers and dog walkers with their animals off the lead. There really are fewer dotties now than even 10 years ago, a sad situation! The concensus is that this is a first summer female, any other thoughts are welcome.

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RED-CROWNED CRANES OF HOKKAIDO

Lucky that the head of the crane in the foreground is framed by the one behind. Over-exposed and reds increased in processing for effect.

After retracing our steps to Nagano, we caught the shinkansen back to Tokyo, from where we took a flight to Kushiro on the snowy northern island of Hokkaido, home to some of Japan’s most spectacular wildlife. As I walked out of the hotel next morning to clear the ice off the minivan’s windscreen, the hairs in my nose froze and when we rolled up at the classic crane overnight roosting site of Otawa Bridge, the temperature gauge read minus 19 degrees Celsius. Hokkaido is very different to the rest of Japan. It came as a surprise to me that the cranes are not guaranteed at the bridge every day. There had been none here the previous day, when they had been disturbed by some over eager ‘toggers’. However, they were closer in the river than usual, affording a nice landscape composition as the light turned from blue to golden with the sunrise. Beyond the cranes our first Steller’s Sea Eagle was feeding on something dead on a bank in the course of the river and an (introduced) American Mink swam by just upstream of the bridge. Within a couple of hours, the sunlight was far too bright, and we headed back for breakfast, relieved to be able to defrost our freezing extremities in the process.

The Otawa Bridge cranes roost was a little closer than usual today. Tripod for a slow shutter speed in the low, cold, blue light to keep the ISO down.

Some yellow light creeping into the frame. How/why did those dipsticks flush them?

 After breakfast our next stop was the famous Akan Crane Observation Center. We were rather stunned to find that only doves and crows had turned up this morning at feeding time. They do not feed the cranes with fish here anymore, owing to fears of bird flu, so there are no longer any of the photogenic eagle/crane/fox conflicts of the past and in fact the cranes are not even guaranteed either. There is a move towards putting out less grain as well, in line with the authorities’ feeling that there is generally too much feeding of wildlife going on. We hung around, until lunchtime without any luck, kept going by the most amazing hot chocolate of the tour and then retreated across the road to a great little restaurant. We were in sight of the crane center and could soon see a handful of cranes arriving at last, while we ate lunch. Disappointingly, as soon as we returned all but one flew off! At least this ‘Billy-No-Mates’ sat down for us, affording some interesting images partly obscured by wind-blown snow. There weren’t any of the other zillions of ‘toggers’ around that we had seen at Otawa Bridge this morning, so we knew the action must be happening elsewhere. Indeed, it was and as we arrived at the Tsurui Ito Crane Observation Center in the afternoon a group of over 60 stately Red-crowned Cranes was gathered, overlooked by a larger gathering of photographers. Many cranes were still pecking in the snow, where the grain of the morning feeding session had been scattered. There was some coming and going that sparked a little dancing but mostly we struggled to isolate birds for portraits or to make some sense of the random and usually messy patterns of black-and-white birds against the white snow background. In late afternoon the cranes would walk up a low rise, taxi-ing towards their take-off runway from where most of them took flight back towards the river where they spend the night. We swung by Otawa Bridge on our return to Kushiro to find a few cranes had already arrived at their roost, although now in less than optimal light. A Steller’s Sea Eagle flew along a distant forested ridge in the sunset and it was soon time for us to call it a day too. The onsen this evening was rather swimming pool-like indoors and not very atmospheric, but the water was nice and the warmth of the outside, rock-lined, pool in bitingly cold night air was terrific.

Sit down protest by the lone remainer. The wind-blown snow flurries created a nice effect.

Three is better than two and four. Ask any flower arranger!

Evening bugle practice at Tsurui Ito.

If I bend my wings I’ll fit in the frame! BIG bird!

Hokkaido sunset. Yellow is my favourite colour!

Next morning, we made a beeline for Tsurui Ito where there was again plenty of crane activity to keep us occupied. We followed this with a very photogenic Ural Owl day roost site in a huge hole in the trunk of an ancient oak tree, about 35m from a fenced off viewing position not far from the main road. This is a regular spot for the big owl with a ‘deceptively gentle look’ and in fact there are often two of them side-by-side in the same hole. We could watch it for as long as we wanted, or at least until we got some owl images with less squinty eyes. We returned to Tsurui Ito for the late afternoon crane show, which was rather cloudy now, before heading back to Kushiro for the night.

I love the Collins Guide annotation ‘deceptively gentle look’. It isn’t called ‘Attacking Owl’ in Sweden for nothing.

 Oh dear! A stunning hoar frost meant we should have been at Otawa Bridge this morning but I was relieved to hear that a later start had still been the best plan when I learned that again the cranes had been disturbed by ‘toggers’ at their roost and none were present at dawn. For the second time in five days, this is obviously becoming a serious problem. Instead we returned to Akan, where this time the cranes had come for breakfast. We suspect that the very cold morning two days earlier had caused them to stay longer in the warm waters of their roosting river. Their numbers built from 10 at 08.30am to 67 by 10am and we enjoyed lots of flight shot potential and some dancing too.

Some more over-exposed crane art

Crane Center sign. jpg

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